What is this man's rank? Can anything else be discerned?

[fortmap]

Hello,
This is a picture of my grandfather. I am trying to find more information about what he did in the first world war. His name is William Ernest Keeling, and I have been told that he was a despatch rider, used to carry homing pigeons on his bike, and that he was in Fromelles at some point. He was also born in 1885.

Anything that can be gathered from this information and the photo would be most useful.
Thank you, everybody and anybody!

[manmack]

the cap badge looks like the royal engineers,there was a corporal 74961 william,e keeling who served in the engineers,landed in france on 31-7-15,the boots are the type that were worn by despatch riders

mack

[fortmap]

Nice. You have found the same medals card that I thought might be him. Do the stripes on the arm mean that he is a Corporal?

I ordered the medal card on the national archives last night, but was disappointed because it was a poor black and white scan.

[fortmap]

Here he is again, this time on his bike. Looks like he's a sergeant here. Is there any way of figuring out when he got the promotion?

[mmm45]

He was probably in one of the Royal Engineers signalling Companys by the sound of your descriptions of his duties and the armbands.
Do you have access to Ancestry? If so you can get a colour copy of his MIC

Hard to tell when he was promoted without record

If there was a motorbike expert he may be able to date the machine but it could be anytime between 1915 and 1921 as no medal ribbons are worn

Ady

[manmack]

he may not be a full sergeant,he may be a lance sgt,this rank is only a temporary appointment,not a promotion,technically a lance sgt is a cpl and paid a cpls rate of pay,lance sgts usually revert back to cpl,or are promoted to sgt when the next available sgts vacancy come up,he looks like hes got the pigeon carriers badge above his stripes,the armbands[red+white] are for personell who were serving with the staff HQ.

mack

[mmm45]

White above blue denotes Signals armband but its B+W So we wont know

Ady

[fortmap]

Thank you for your replies, everybody. You have all been most helpful.

(I have no access to ancestry - too expensive for me)

[old rowley]

The motorcycle looks like it could be a Model H. Triumph 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Model_H

OR.